Just Outside the Middle of Nowhere

I had a chance to take a trip to North Dakota a little while back. Anytime I go out of town I try and take someone with me. This time I took my friend Brett Mikkelson. He's a great guy and a great musician, not to mention hilarious.

I was going to ND to play at a church and then the next day at a camp. Brett and I loaded up my car and headed up 94 with some road meat, Red Bull and a couple iPods. We took turns playing JD with the iPods and introducing each other to music that we figured the other didn't know. I played Brett some Little River Band and he played me some Daft Punk. I'm not sure if Brett will ever go buy and Little River Band. I however have purchased some Daft Punk and am definately better for it. www.daftpunk.com

We played Sunday night in Grand Forks at the Evangelical Free Church and it was much more fun than I would have guessed. Not that E-Free people aren't fun but they really seems to get us. That makes a night of music really fun. We sang to them and
with them and laughed a lot. Afterwords we had a chance to meet some of the folks from town and made a obligatory after gig Perkin's stop. There's nothing like eggs and bacon at 10:30 at night.

We stayed at a local hotel that night and woke the next morning ready to hit the road again.

Brett and I spent the morning at Starbucks talking about music, life and faith. It was great to have a chance to hear from someone nearly twenty years younger than me that is so wise.



Out next stop was Coooperstown Bible Camp. Cooperstown is a couple hours off hwy 29 in the middle of nowhere. Actually it's just outside the middle of nowhere. We were driving down some small county road when it just kind of dissapeared. The pavement gave way to dirt where the road used to be and then we left the road and were on some kind of path in the middle of a field for a while. It was all very strange. Finally we were directed back onto the highway for a short while and then we saw the sign for Cooperstown Bible Camp a got off on another dirt road.

When we finally arrived at the camp we were greeted by John.
John was a camper of mine back at Camp Shamineau about eighteen years ago. I was twenty, John was nine.

John gave us a tour of camp.

John got us some dinner.

And then we went over to the camps meeting room. It was this incredible old building called the Tabernacle.


We had a wonderful time that night with the folks from the camp and the town. These are people from the heart of the heartland. Many of them farm the beautiful rich land found in this part of the country. They are hard working families and it was our pleasure to get to share an evening with them.

cabin fever

Last week we spent up north at the cabin. I showered once, ate most of the time, swam every day and hopefully started what will be a long standing tradition in our family. The cabin.

Here are a few pics.

Enjoy!

Road Trippin'!...kind-of

Well I don't know about you but I had a great weekend! I hopped a plane to sunny California and took in some motorcycle racing. I met up with my brother Jade and some of our friends from Nashville and spent the weekend at Laguna Seca Raceway in Monterey, CA. This was the first time that the Moto GP series had come to the United States in eleven years. For those of you who are unfamiliar it is the most insane motorcycle racing you'll ever see. Top speed on these bikes reaches over 200 mph!Laguna Seca Raceway wasn't long enough to get those kind of speeds so we had to settle for 150 mph. Gosh! We hoped for a great race weekend and that's exactly what we were given.

The weather was perfect. Our camp site was awesome and the racing was everything I hoped it would be. One hundred and fifty thousand people came to watch the races with us. That was a spectacle in itself. We spent part of the first two days watching people drink beer for breakfast and scoping out the perfect spot to watch the race. We ended up at a set of corners called the Corkscrew and it was SUPA GRRRREAT! (Scottish accent implied).

I ate spicy hotdogs for breakfast. I threw my leg over some really cool bikes. I showered only once. I slept in a tent for the first time in years and I loved it! I also learned, in being treated to a beverage called a "Dreamsicle", that you have to be careful with Vodka.

All in all I have to say that a good "guys weekend" is about as good as any weekend can get.

By the way, Nicky Hayden won Sunday's big race. As he came around on his victory lap he was carrying the American flag with him. It may sound corny but I was certainly proud to be an American that day.

Moto GP baby!

Now where did I put that again?

Well let me just say thank you to all of you bloggers who called me out of my non writing funk. Thanks for you encouragement and kindness. I hope to return the same to you.

The truth is that I couldn't remember my username and password. I have tried to be one of those security smart people who use different usernames and passwords for my many accounts. The trouble is I'm not very organized and I'm also forgetful. That is a dangerous combination as you can guess. But fortunately, thanks in part to your prompting, I was able to figure out the right combination through a somewhat long process of elimination.

So now I just need to come up with some worthwhile stuff to write about. I'm open to suggestions so feel free to give me some fodder for writing and I'll try my darndest to put finger to keyboard and underwhelm us all.

With all th blog in my heart,

J

Hello Out There

I am a bit of a late comer to the bloggers world but here I am none the less. Big gulps huh? Well...see ya later!